The Noviciate
by Ms Western Ink
Summary: She was destined to become a nun... a woman of God. Did it bother him? AxR
1. Chapter 1

**The Noviciate**

* * *

Only doing his job.

That's what he told himself. He was doing his job; he was following Zaizen's orders. He was responsible for all her actions. If she was not in her bed, he reasoned, she was wandering the city and that was out of the bounds of acceptable for him.

With his reasoning intact, he slipped his key into the lock and stepped into the darkened apartment registered to T. Masaki. His voice mail had alerted him several hours earlier he had a new message. Touko had called to inform him she was out of town for two weeks. She had not specified the exact nature of her out-of-town business, instead choosing to keep her message clipped. He appreciated her tendency to keep things curt and straightforward.

Slipping his shoes off at the entryway, he forced himself to reexamine his motives. Was he being polite by removing his shoes and following tradition or was he planning on staying longer than his duty required? He was only doing his job; it was not a social visit.

Men didn't make _social_ visits at three in the morning. _He_ didn't make social visits at all. This was business, he reminded himself as he stepped into the apartment, peering around the darkened room. The living room to the left, the kitchen to the right… her bedroom was just beyond, only a few feet away. He could see the doorway from where he stood, closed and secure.

Was it locked?

Did she lock her bedroom door behind her?

He wondered, he stood and contemplated it for several long moments. Was she even asleep? The apartment was silent but that didn't mean she slept. What if she was a light sleeper? What if he opened her door and she woke up? What would he say? How would he explain himself to her?

He moved toward her door and raised his hand to the doorknob, placing his bare palm against the metal door handle. It was cold. The entire apartment was chilly. Was the heat off?

Slowly, he turned it and the doorway was obediently silent. The hinges, too, were quiet and the door swung open without sound revealing an equally dark bedroom.

Robin's room was what he expected. It looked different at night than it did in the day. He had visited only a day earlier, this very room, while both Robin and Touko were out. He had ran his fingers across her dresser, along her bed, touching his fingers to her blankets… her suitcase was the only thing that seemed to be hers in the room. The place was devoid of personalization.

Unwilling to resist his temptation, he had opened the box. Inside, he found nothing shocking, nothing expensive, and nothing elaborate. A girl's box of things. No jewelry or hair ties, no pictures.

Robin was an orphan that he knew.

Unabashed, he had slid his fingers against the soft white panties he had found, pushing them aside as he looked through her things. Her hosiery was delicate and silky against his hands, her slips pearly black…

Her file at STN-J headquarters had said little, but it mentioned her status as a hunter and a _noviciate_, a girl in training to become a nun. He had had some idea about her lack of worldiness just from seeing and working with her, but to see it in print… that she was a _noviciate_…

His guilt for his interest in her was mild. She was on the brink of womanhood, a girl going to bloom into a woman and then cloak that delicate beauty in the black folds of permanent chastity and service and poverty.

He was still unsure how he felt about her _noviciate_ status and how it affected him. Part of him wanted to see her accepted into the convent, to see her beauty framed in black, to know she would be permanently chaste and beyond the corrupting touch of man. Part of him wanted to share that corruption with her, to teach and experience worldly things with her…

He stepped into her bedroom fully leaving the door ajar behind him. The curtains blew in breeze, her window was propped open with an old hardcover book. The two wall lights on either side of her bed were off leaving the room in darkness but the moon was bright and full casting delicate silver rays over her crisp white linens.

Standing at the foot of the bed he glanced over her. She was laying on her side, her blankets kicked to edge only her white sheets covering her skin. Stepping to the left side, he noted her shoulder was bare and his eyes drifted down her back. It too was bare. She wore nothing to bed?

A girl of her age?

A noviciate?

Naked?

Was that normal?

Her hair was loose and fell over her pillow limply. She looked older with her hair loose, graceful, he was glad she wore it up. Nothing, however, hid those large, luminous eyes in the daytime. He could stare forever at her face. He was spared the hynotic pull of her gaze by her being asleep, her eyes closed, her lashes laying against her cheeks.

He turned his eyes to her bed table. The clock reminded him of the late hour. She was in her bed, asleep, as he wished to confirm. His job was done, he could go home and rest. Chances were that she would not be leaving that night. He had awakened her early and kept her out late.

He turned and quietly retreated from the room. As he reached for the door, he turned to glance back and caught sight of her dress hanging on the other side of the room. It rippled slightly with the breeze flowing in from the window.

He recalled the day he'd first seen her in that dress, walking down the halls of Harry's. He recalled those eyes of hers, those he would never forget. It was something so uniquely Robin that it made him itch in a way he had never quite experienced before. It wasn't a physical itch it was… It was beyond definition.

Was it black silk against her skin or was it cotton? Did it make her sweat? How many dresses of that design did she own? Did she have one and she washed it daily? What did she wear beneath it? Was it always the same? Did she have colored things as part of her wardrobe or were such things forbidden? How did she feel about lace and silk?

She was a _noviciate._ She would beocme a nun and take vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty. She would give her life to God and never be touched by man, any man. He turned and stepped out.

His duty was done for the night. Tomorrow, she would return to the office and those bright eyes would turn to him and he would spend the day caught between his work and looking at her.

A noviciate, a woman who would become a nun.

* * *

AN: Is there more to this? Probably, so I'll list it as incomplete. It's really kind of a practice thing, I've never done WHR before. Robin's hard to write... 


	2. Chapter 2

**The Noviciate**

**Part II**

* * *

Robin was graceful. Whether it was natural or it had been trained into her, it remained fact. He liked to watch her. She slinked, almost floated when she walked. Maybe it was the dress or the serene look upon her face. It was very likely all those things together.

When she battled, she remained graceful. There were no jerky movements or awkward shifts in her. She held her head up with perfect regal elegance. He'd gone back and forth with himself about the reasons why he watched her, but he did watch her. He'd watched her from the very moment he laid eyes upon her in Harry's.

He followed her.

He spied on her.

Maybe he was obsessed with her, maybe he was following orders. It was one; it was both. He had long ceased to care which it was as long as he was able to continue watching her. She was strange, beautiful, and simply _haunting_.

Sitting at her desk, he watched her read. Something was scrolling on her screen, likely the newest case file; perhaps it was an old one. She liked to read. He _assumed _she liked to read. During down time she often sat at her console and read mission files sipping coffee or tea. Once she'd brought in some kind of juice, orange from the color of it and drank that. Most times, she had something to drink in her hand while she sat at her desk.

Activity that morning was lacking as they were waiting on information. Sitting about the station, they were all chatting. Robin was still reading but she seemed to be listening if the way her eyes kept drifting from her screen toward the group was any indication.

"If you could do anything in life, what would it be?" Dojima asked suddenly. "I mean, just anything."

"I'd go skiing," Sakaki commented leaning back in his chair, propping his feet up on the desk.

"That sounds fun, I'd do that," Michael answered. "Or go to one of those computer conventions that would also be cool."

"What do you think Karasuma?"

The woman turned her chair and smiled. "I've always wanted to go on a cruise and just relax."

Dojima smiled and they exchanged a few comments about sunbathing and deck activities. Amon listened and watched discreetly.

"What about you, Robin?"

"Anything?" the girl asked without turning.

"Anything," Dojima replied. "_Without_ thinking about your convent rules."

Her convent rules? Amon wondered about that. Was Robin still living by her convent rules?

"I would like to go dancing. We weren't allowed to dance," she answered softly.

He could see her dancing. She would be graceful and perfect, movements slow and flowing.

Sakaki scoffed. "Convents suck, man. You can't do anything in a convent."

Someone slapped Sakaki's arm for the comment, but Amon didn't see who. He suspected it was Dojima.

"That's an easy one, Robin. You should go. It's not like its anything that would get you into a lot of trouble, right? It's only dancing," Dojima pondered. "Or… would you get into trouble for it?"

The girl shrugged absently. "It's considered behavior unfitting of a young lady."

How so like her, he thought. Never to be guilty of that, behavior unfitting of a young lady…

"Totally, man. I'll teach you how to dance. I'm not great at it or anything, but I can do it," Sakaki offered and Robin turned.

"Really?"

She sounded hopeful. Amon watched their expressions carefully. He thought of it. Sakaki's hands on Robin's narrow waist and she would allow it. She, a girl a few skips from becoming a nun, a woman of God. When Sakaki touched her would he leave marks on her?

Sakaki stood. "Yo, Michael, you got some dancing music?"

The young hacker's rapid fingers stopped their typing. "Uh…" he tilted his head back. "You mean like… slow music?"

"Yeah, slow music. I don't think she wants to learn club dancing. You want to slow dance, right?"

She blinked and seemed hesitant. "What's club dancing?"

He shook his head. "Nothing you want to learn, come on, Michael! Break out the slow music."

The boy unhooked his headphones and turned up the music of a blaring rock song before he hurriedly pressed the stop button. "Hold on a second while I find a radio station or something."

The others waited and Robin stood nervously approaching where Sakaki was standing on the opposite side of the computer station. "This is easy," he reassured her. "Just takes a little practice."

When the soft melodic bars of a love song began to play, Amon felt dread fill his stomach. It felt so colossally wrong for her to dance to such a sound. He thought again of corruption. He turned his eyes back toward her having looked away. Sakaki had slid an arm around her, one hand resting on her hip, his other hand taking hers. It was chaste and awkward. It reminded him of Robin's age and for that reminder, he was not pleased. It also reminded him that both Sakaki and Michael were _closer_ to Robin's age.

Amon watched them twirl around for several minutes before snapping at everyone to return to work. Chief Kosaka would have put an end to the nonsense much sooner if he hadn't up there volunteering to teach Robin to dance himself claiming "much more experience".

"Let's go."

* * *

His voice seemed to catch her off guard as she sat at her desk flipping through the pages of a file. She looked up, her eyes curious.

"Go?" she asked.

"We're done for the day. I'll take you home." It wasn't an offer and she recognized the tone and obeyed without a word of protest. She closed the file and set it aside leaving her desk neat. Always neat. Her room was neat too. Everything about her was neat.

He waited for her by the elevator. He heard her footsteps behind him, light and even. Her coat was held over her arm, her gaze toward the floor, the same serene expression she always wore.

They rode downstairs in silence and slipped into his car. After buckling her seatbelt she leaned toward the window and sighed. He watched her a moment and then started the car.

"Were you disappointed?"

He surprised even himself by asking.

"Disappointed?" She didn't look toward him; she continued to stare out the window.

"Dancing with Sakaki," he clarified.

For a moment she was silent and then she turned her eyes toward the dashboard and stared at it determinately. "Yes. I was expecting something different."

Different? Different _how?_

He needn't have wondered very long as Robin answered his unspoken thought. "Touko has these books around the apartment. I didn't mean to start reading them; I think I'm sorry that I did. Everything seems a little different now."

Books? To his knowledge Touko had a preference for romance novels if the few he'd seen on her shelf was any indication.

Was Robin reading Touko's novels full of passion and… well… sex? What exactly had she been expecting when she said she wanted to _dance?_

"Doesn't Touko read romance novels?" he asked.

Robin nodded, a reaction he had to turn to see. His working knowledge of romance novels was scant. He knew they existed and what they consisted of, but he had not ever read one so he wasn't exactly sure what her expectations could've consisted of.

"What were you expecting?"

"I don't know, just… A feeling, I think."

A feeling? He didn't have any feelings when he danced, however rare an occasion it was. What kind of feelings did women, or in this case, _young_ women have when _they_ danced? He didn't understand.

When they reached her apartment, he pulled over and pulled his keys from the ignition. Robin didn't hesitate. She thanked him and slipped out. When he stepped out of the car she was already at the top of the steps and inside the building. She was preoccupied with her thoughts. He followed her to her door and caught it just before she closed it behind her.

What was he doing? He stepped in after her. It was evident the moment she realized he'd followed her. Her entire spine tensed and she turned.

"Amon?" There was that same soft, curious tone in her voice. He heard it most often when she said his name. No one said his name like that but her. The fact that he liked hearing her say it should've bothered him, but didn't.

He didn't say anything. He stepped forward and reached for her wrist pulling her to him. She had discarded her shoes at the door but he hadn't bothered. He pulled her close, closer than Sakaki had. His jacket touched her pinafore. One hand swept around her tiny waist and the other took her hand in his.

Without music, he guided her into a slow dance. He felt her breathing shift, quicken… Her body moved against his.

They were too close. It was not the chaste dance Sakaki had shown her. Their bodies touched and she _noticed_.

He _wanted_ her to notice him.

Her bare hands were warm against his gloves. When she miss-stepped she pushed herself inadvertently against his chest, he felt the swell of her breast.

Leaning down, his nose was a breath from hers. "Do you want to be a nun, Robin?" he breathed.

He had to know. What were her intentions?

"I… I don't know," she answered.

She didn't know. Had she ever been sure of her future? Did she want to be a nun or had it been pressed upon her by those she had grown up with? Brushing his nose once to hers, he slowed and stepped back, sliding from her touch.

"Goodnight."

Was one supposed to get a feeling from dancing? He exited the building, retreated to his car and pulled away. He did not want to be there when Touko arrived. He didn't want her to know he'd been there at all. He was blocks away before he felt that _feeling_ fade away.

Who, before her, had ever given him a _feeling_ by just dancing?

Better yet, what kind of _feeling_ was it and what was he supposed to do with her answer? She wasn't sure if she wanted to become a nun.


End file.
